Re: HAVE_STDBOOL_H, AC_HEADER_STDBOOL, and AM_STDBOOL_H

[Russ Allbery]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:

> In Gnulib:

> * Rename gnulib's AC_HEADER_STDBOOL to gl_HEADER_STDBOOL.
> * Remove the AC_DEFINE([HAVE_STDBOOL_H], ...) from gl_HEADER_STDBOOL.
> * Rename gnulib's AM_STDBOOL_H to gl_STDBOOL_H.

> In Autoconf:

> * Mark AC_HEADER_STDBOOL as obsolescent, and suggest to
>   Autoconf users that in the future they use gnulib if they want to
>   be portable to pre-C99 hosts with respect to <stdbool.h>.

Please don't make this last change in Autoconf.  AC_HEADER_STDBOOL in
Autoconf works well right now for people who do not use gnulib, and I
don't think that it's a good idea to mark obsolescent a working Autoconf
macro to try to "push" people towards using gnulib instead.  The Autoconf
manual already spells out exactly how to use AC_HEADER_STDBOOL correctly,
and those instructions work fine, without requiring importing any code
from yet another project.

In general, please continue to support straight Autoconf users with the
macros that are in Autoconf.  It feels like there's a somewhat disturbing
long-term trend here towards pushing everyone who uses Autoconf into also
using gnulib, even if Autoconf-using projects are not particularly
interested in or set up to use gnulib.

I'm of course agnostic about the gnulib changes, since I don't use gnulib
and will happily leave discussion of that to those who do.  But given that
you're proposing renaming macros in gnulib, I don't see any need to make
the Autoconf change as well, since the gnulib macros will have different
names and will therefore not need to retain compatibility with the
same-named macros in Autoconf.

-- 
Russ Allbery (address@hidden)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>